


Red Russian

by fluffharpy



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, F/M, Intimacy, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 16:16:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3656850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffharpy/pseuds/fluffharpy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another story from the same universe as The Romanian Solution, but not a direct sequel.</p><p>Natasha sat by the window watching the sky shade toward amber. The sun itself was unseen somewhere off to the right, but the light that spilled down the alley was enough to sting her eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Russian

**Author's Note:**

  * For [myrafur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrafur/gifts).



> Happy Birthday! I'm glad you like it, even if it isn't what you wanted.

18:31h, LOCATION UNDISCLOSED

Natasha sat by the window watching the sky shade toward amber. The sun itself was unseen somewhere off to the right, but the light that spilled down the alley was enough to sting her eyes.

Waiting had never been hard for her. Patience was drilled into her from her earliest memories—not a virtue, but a skill, and one cultivated strictly. She remembered times where she was made to sit for hours on end, silent, unmoving, until a buzzer went off and a red light inside a wire cage on the wall came on. Then she would leap to her feet and garrote a training dummy, or begin punching a bag, or pick a lock to get out of the room. She had to be able to sit in complete stillness until the moment to act came, then execute her mission without confusion, without distraction, without hesitation.

But today's sunset would be a long one.

 

18:54h, LOCATION UNDISCLOSED

The bathroom was Spartan: naked sink, rust-ringed tub and shower, toilet. There was a mirror, spotted black around the edges with age and flecked white from lack of cleaning. The water from the tap had a mineral taste.

Natasha splashed her face with it. She didn't want to look at her reflection. Perversely, that was why she had to.

Shoulder first. 

The recent bullet wound peeked back at her from under the strap of her top, healing. Fury's doctor had been good at his job. Good enough to bring him back from the brink of death. More than up to the challenge of dealing with a winged spy.

But shoulder shots were notoriously tricky. Too many nerves. Too many veins. It was uncommon to recover without loss of strength or diminished range of motion. It was almost unheard of not to have persistent pain after months of recovery. 

She ran her fingers over the puckered, pink lip of the scar. 

She'd used it in combat the next day.

She left the bathroom without meeting the reflection of her eyes.

 

19:19h, LOCATION UNDISCLOSED

Incoming call on her personal phone. The number was unavailable, but only a handful of people had it. Fewer had reason to call.

"Clint?"

"Nat? Where are you?"

She paused, considering her answer. She didn't consider not giving him one.

She settled on, "Somewhere safe. Laying low."

"I know where?"

"It's all right. It's—"

"Nat, do I know where? Give me a clue here."

Another pause. 

"Yeah. Yeah, you know where. Remember the Klinger job? After the opera."

Met with a sound of distaste. She almost smiled. Clint hadn't liked that one.

"I know the place. Stay there."

"What do you think you're going to do?"

"I'll figure that part out on the way."

The call disconnected.

 

19:32h, LOCATION UNDISCLOSED

She felt the sunset without seeing it. Nightfall was like a living thing that passed through the air, like a swarm of mosquitoes that buzzed along her skin. The sensation was a relief in some ways. The darkness was alive, and with it so was she. There was a lethargy, a sterility to the daylight hours that she hadn't noticed until it was gone. 

Nightfall also came with the hunger, and that energy that thrummed along her nerves brought along an anxious chill that begged her to move.

She was, after all, always a hunter.

 

21:01h, LOCATION UNDISCLOSED

Natasha sat by the window in the dark, watching the sky. If it weren't for the few stars that won through the ambient city light, she might have thought it was still blue hour. The details on the buildings across the way were precisely defined. Rippled windows, pocked brick, patterned curtains, all as clear as they would have been under the sun.

The door opened without a knock.

"Natasha?"

She took a shaky breath before answering and scrubbed one hand across her face.

"In here."

The sound of his boots on the hardwood floor was the loudest thing in the apartment, a thud with the footfall followed by a faint scraping of tread as he pushed off the floor. The sound tracked his progress down the hall and around the corner.

"Mind if I turn on the light?" he asked. 

She tightened her lips, glancing his direction. She didn't know what he saw of her face, but whatever it was stopped him short just an instant before he crossed the kitchen to join her.

"Sure," he said. "In the dark then. Why not. Keeping the electric bill down?"

"Clint, you didn't have to come. I'm—" not all right. She couldn't say that. It wasn't that it would be a lie, but he would have known it was a lie. There wasn't a point. Trying would have been beneath both of them. "I'm handling it."

He sat across from her, elbows on the table, leaning forward. His expression was never exactly neutral. He wasn't a spy. What he was was calm. Sharpshooter calm. He had her in his sights. "Tell me," he said. It wasn't a request. "I want to know. What happened after DC, Natasha?"

"I've been laying low," she said. Rote answer: "Gave up all my covers. Made some enemies. I'm taking some time to sort things out."

All true, but not the whole story. He waited for the rest, his cheek twitching.

His heartbeat was steady and strong. She could hear it, a subtle drumming sound that made her teeth itch.

"I got hit," she told him, closing her eyes on the admission. "Lost a lot of blood. I was stable; now I'm not."

She added, "You know what I am."

"I have an idea. The whole story's a little above my paygrade."

"You want to hear it now."

He tipped his head slightly, mouth wry. "I got all night."

 

STATUS: CLASSIFIED

During World War II, Hydra continued experiments based on Dr. Abraham Erskine's super soldier serum. Without Erskine's research to work from, they were forced to pursue alternative formulas. Their breakthrough advance came in the form of a specimen recovered in the Ukraine—a blood sample taken from a woman the locals claimed was a witch or a vampire. Dr. Arnim Zola's greatest success implementing it was the Winter Soldier. He showed many promising traits similar to Steve Rogers' Captain America, including heightened strength, reflexes and agility.

Unfortunately, the Winter Soldier was too unstable for permanent active duty. He developed many of the undesirable features of the Ukrainian subject. He had to be kept in a cryogenic stasis between missions to prevent escalating photosensitivity and hematophagia. 

After the war, the specimen came to be affectionately if inaccurately referred to as the Romanian Solution after the reputation of the area. More than one nation invested in engineering a more stable version of the formula. At least two countries, the US and the USSR, saw success with variations on Zola's formula. Successful subjects gained increased speed and endurance, resistance to shock, and improved recovery from injuries. Some also saw extended lifespans.

The potential for unwanted escalation remained in the new subjects, however. Stress, injury, sometimes even time could eventually make them unstable, resulting in the progression toward vampiric traits of the Ukrainian subject and the Winter Soldier.

In the event of progression, subjects were either reeducated and moved into special black ops units or, in cases where they proved uncontrollable, liquidated. 

 

21:44h, LOCATION UNDISCLOSED

Clint made coffee. Natasha didn't drink any, but she was grateful for the activity. The light had been turned on early on in the process, Clint grumbling something about not burning himself on the stovetop for the sake of some old world superstition. 

The light made her feel superficially more human.

They didn't speak while he worked. He needed space to process. It would be best if he decided to leave, but Natasha doubted he'd draw the same conclusion. She couldn't say what he would do, though. He was one of a very short list of people capable of genuinely surprising her.

She felt like she was a child again, waiting for that red light to come on. When it did, then what? There were no orders for this situation. She wasn't trained for this. If this had happened before the fall of the USSR, she'd be someone else's mission right now.

She might still be. Hard to know.

"So how many are there?" Clint was looking for a clean cup when he asked. There weren't any coffee mugs. He had to settle for a glass tumbler. 

"A few dozen at most."

"You sure about that?"

"Sure as I can be. No one's used the Romanian Solution since the Cold War. Russia was the last to stop, and even they'd moved on to new technology by the 80s. Most of us would have died or been put down by now."

"And the ones who haven't?"

"I don't know, Clint. I didn't know half of this myself until after DC. I've been digging since then."

"I thought you were laying low?"

She watched as he drank his coffee, how his throat worked. "Reading material. I can multitask."

"Now that sounds like you," he said. He didn't smile, but it was in his voice. That warm note faded as he continued. "What are you going to do now?"

"What I've been doing. Research. Seeing if there's any other ways to stall or reverse it. Freezing myself isn't an option."

"SHIELD doctors—"

It was her turn to interrupt, cutting in as sharply as an elbow to the solar plexus. "Who? I don't know who from SHIELD we can trust anymore. Do you?"

"Nat," he said, then trailed off as he had to admit to himself that the support system that they'd come to expect couldn't be relied on anymore. In some respects, they were both of them prepared to deal with that. In other ways, working for a powerful international organization had definitely had advantages that they'd grown used to.

"There's Stark," he suggested finally.

Natasha raised both eyebrows pointedly.

Clint didn't press that suggestion. Instead, he took a new line of questioning. "So you're going to need blood?"

"If it gets far enough."

"Is it going to get that far?"

"Unless I find something new… yeah. Soon."

He nodded, as though that made sense. As though that were the most rational thing in the world.

"Clint," she said gently. "You should go. You don't want to be here if it comes down to that. For all I know, there might still be a team coming for me. My name's out there now, and Russia's recovered most of their old KGB intelligence. There's a lot of people in the new regime who came over from the old one."

"I'm not seeing that's a good reason for me to leave," he said.

Wherever the conversation might have gone from there, it was sidetracked by Clint burning his hand on the glass and spilling coffee across the Formica tabletop. Natasha stood to help him clean up. It let her avoid telling him to leave again. She didn't really want him to go.

 

22:04h, LOCATION UNDISCLOSED

Clint sat beside her on the apartment's one sagging couch and offered her his blood.

"No." The answer was immediate and firm. "I can't let you do that."

"Kinda seems like I am," he said. "I know you, Nat. I know you're holding things back from me, and that's fine. That's how you operate. You don't get to be a superspy without picking up that kind of habit.

"I know when you say soon, you mean now."

There was something vaguely insulting, on a professional level, about being seen through. Even by him.

"Tell me I'm wrong."

She couldn't. That didn't mean there wasn't one last argument left in her.

"Do I get a say in this? That's not what I want. It's not what I want for either of us." True, to a point. She didn't want it, but the thought was there, had been there since before he spoke up. Now that he offered, it twisted uncomfortably in her stomach, burned in her throat. Her voice roughened as she spoke.

"Of course you get a say," he said, and he had the grace to sound sorry. "That doesn't mean you can have what you want if what you want isn't an option."

"There are other options. Transfusions—"

"If you were going to get one of those, you'd have gotten it by now. Probably already have. At the very least they would have had a bag in you after you were shot. Did it help then?"

She started opened her mouth to say something, but couldn't find the words. 

"Nat," he said when she didn't answer. "If this is what you are, then it's what you are. I'm not going to turn my back on you because of it. You have more control than any other person I've met in my life. You're not going to be beat by this thing. If I can help, I will.

"I trust you."

"Barton," Natasha said, "You are the biggest idiot I've ever met."

 

22:20h, LOCATION UNDISCLOSED

"Are you sure about this?" Natasha asked. She wished she had a more persuasive play. She didn't.

"When you say it like that, it sounds like you're the one who pushed me into it." Clint's humor was flat, compulsory. 

"There's still time to change your mind."

"I'm not going to."

"What did I do to deserve such stubborn men?" she said in Russian, surrender seeping into her in a giddy wave of anticipation. The feeling scared her a little.

"I can understand that, you know." Clint said. He didn't sound victorious. "So how do we do this?"

Her breathing picked up a little as she considered. Her cheeks tingled, a strange feeling like a flush without any heat. His heartbeat didn't change, stirring a pang of guilt.

"With your back to me," she said. "That'll be easiest."

"Great." He turned in his seat, pushing away from the back of the couch and rotating until the outside of his leg hit the arm. "Then let's do this thing. We can figure out what comes next in the morning."

Natasha glanced at the clock. Shadows clung to it. Sunrise couldn't be farther away.

"You don't need to be in such a hurry," she said. Scolded. He made it too easy to be eager.

"You're not getting anything from waiting," he said quietly. There was a disturbing sincerity in his voice. 

I get to be me a little longer, she didn't say. She didn't tell him that she'd been waiting for this so long that she wasn't sure how to stop waiting. She didn't say that she couldn't even remember a time when thirst hadn't been a faint ache in the back of her awareness.

She inched in closer to him, snaking first one arm, then the other around him. She caught his wrists and gathered them in, holding his hands close to his body. He let her move him without resistance as she pulled him against her, his back pressed to her chest.

She could smell him, sweat and leather, and the lubricants that he would have used to maintain his bow. She could smell the heat under his skin, almost see it.

A spike of hunger struck her with physical force and she froze. Every muscle tightened. She held herself still until the worst receded again.

His heart did pick up then, though not in fear. She squirmed a little, craning his neck as though he'd look at her.

"Don't move." She whispered to hide the strain in her voice. To her own ears, the effort was no success. "Please. Just… give me a moment."

"Nat…" he began, then stopped. He didn't try to move again. 

He was less tense than she was.

She almost laughed.

For long moment, he let her stay like that—wrapped around him and so tightly wound she thought she must be vibrating. He didn't even swallow. His breathing was steady, pulse calling to her even as he deliberately slowed it. They said archers fired between heartbeats. She remembered someone telling her that. Maybe it had been him.

Deliberately, she eased her hold. She could not relax, but she could fake it. She could force her posture loose while every nerve and fiber was drawn taut.

They both had their skills that way.

"Are you ready?" she asked, not trying to rein in the smoky rasp in the words. 

He warmed. 

"Whenever you are," he said. "I expect orange juice and animal crackers afterward."

She hissed him quiet.

Slowly, she shifted behind him, lowering her lips until they hovered a few centimeters from his neck. Her lips parted and her tongue flicked out, not touching but tasting the air. There was a stretching feeling in the roots of her teeth. Pressure. Not pain. She had never felt it like that before. Always before she had fought it back. She pressed her lips against her teeth gingerly. The shape of them hadn't changed so much, but the difference was still evident. The tips pressed against her inner lip, two hard points sharp enough to go through skin with only a light touch.

Just let him be still, she thought.

Focus.

She parted her lips again, tilting her head with slow, mindful intention, and let her mouth find his throat. Instinct would have taken over then, if she let it. It was all she could do to keep the bite shallow.

Blood spilled into her mouth, and it tasted like blood. She knew the flavor. Hot and salty, and copper-strong. Her need didn't change that taste. It didn't make blood taste like anything other than blood.

But she did need it. She needed it on some vital level, something visceral that narrowed her thoughts and her attention and left her terrifyingly vulnerable. She struggled with the way the blood drew in all of her attention, until only she and Clint existed. She wound herself around him more securely even so, taking him in by the mouthful. She forgot where the knives were hidden in along her back and in her waistband. She forgot to worry about entry points. She stopped, for a moment, thinking about how she would escape if there was a raid just that moment—

Clint's breathing changed, grew rougher and panted. He didn't try to escape, but he moved again, leaning back so her breasts flattened against him. His hands found her arms and clutched her as securely as she clung to him.

She couldn't tell if it hurt him or not. It sounded sexual, the way grunts in sparing could sound sexual. The way a man's grimace as he orgasmed could look violent.

Stop, she told herself. The command made her shudder, but her body did not obey. Not immediately. 

She sucked at the wound, trying to encourage more blood. For a moment, it seemed she'd taken all she could from the bite, but his next heartbeat brought more, the flavor red in her mouth.

He groaned, just softly. She warmed as she hadn't been able to before, color coming to her cheeks and her chest. She could feel it spread down her body, fluid, suffusing her with feeling more intense than she could ever remember. 

Stop, she told herself again, and this time she succeeded in wrenching herself away from the bite.

She couldn't keep from making quiet sound of disappointment, a half whine that caught in her throat.

"Nat?" Clint said. "Is that—"

She found her voice, pressing her forehead against his shoulder as she tested it. "It's fine. Enough. It's enough for now."

He squeezed her arm. Ridiculous and stubborn and trying to comfort her now.

"It's all right," he said. "Nat, Natasha, it's all right."

His laughter was strained, but he laughed anyway. He said, "I hurt myself worse than that every other week."

"Sh. Sh, sh." She didn't lift her head, not ready to let go of him yet, and even less ready to face him. "Just give me a moment. It's…"

She didn't know what it was. Nothing would be the same after that, but somehow with her face buried in his back, nothing felt different.

"We're a mess," she said after a brief moment.

"When aren't we?"

 

23:12h, LOCATION UNDISCLOSED

Nat washed her face in the dark. She didn't need the light. There was less blood than she'd imagined, but some had still gotten away from her, dribbling a trail down from one corner of her mouth. She wiped it away with hands that didn't shake.

Reflected in the mirror, her eyes caught what little light came in through the window and flashed it back red.

Clint came in behind her, reached under her arm to brace himself against the sink and examine the bite mark on his neck. She wasn't sure how well he saw it. To her, it was clear. And he had been right—he hurt himself worse than that regularly. They both did. If he kept it clean, it would probably heal without a mark.

"Bandages?" he asked. "I don't suppose you have any Neosporin?"

"There's iodine and bandages in the first aid kit," she said, watching the mark in the mirror. "In the kitchen."

He didn't move to get away, as comfortable in her space as he always was. 

Her eyes dropped to his hand resting near hers on the edge of the sink, but not touching.

"I thought you weren't supposed to have a reflection."

She tapped her thumb rather than shrug. "I think that part's just legend."

"We've fought legends," he said. "And fought with legends. Maybe you're not all vamp yet? Just, I don't know, half or something like that. Like in the Lost Boys. You could go back if we take out the guy who did this to you."

"Really?" She almost laughed, but refused to give him the satisfaction.

"Probably not. It's a nice thought, though."

"Go clean that up. It's all we need to have it get infected."

"Right, right." Still, he didn't go immediately. He let his hand fall across her hip as he pushed off the sink, lingering across it in a meaningful arc. She touched the back of his wrist just as meaningfully, though more brief, accepting the contact.

Their eyes met in the mirror, hers eerie and his blown wide.

Then he was gone, and Natasha was left with her own reflection, her own face gazing at some point behind her in the dark.

fin


End file.
